Ted Grant

The Spanish Revolution 1931-37

Written: Autumn 1973 Markup: Emil 2006

Spain is in the first stages of a movement in the direction of revolution. The Fascist
regime is completely undermined. The working class has recovered from the terrible defeat
inflicted by the forces of reaction in the Civil War. The middle class is filled with
hatred for the dictatorship and looking with sympathy to the struggle of the workers. The
bourgeoisie is looking for a way out as it feels the pressure of the masses.

The repressive machine of the dictatorship has been enfeebled as it loses all mass
support. From a totalitarian fascist state, it has been transformed into a military police
state relying on the state machinery of oppression and repression - consequently it has
become transformed into a Bonapartist rather than a Fascist regime. This marks the
beginning of its downfall.

Once the workers, peasants and middle class begin to move into action on a concerted
national scale, the hour for the collapse of the regime will have arrived. The great
revenge of the working class will begin. By what regime will the Franco dictatorship be
replaced? That is the immediate burning question facing the Spanish proletariat and the
Socialist Party and Young Socialists of Spain.

The British Marxists, in the spirit of international solidarity, (the Spanish
Revolution is also their revolution, as is every revolution in the world) are turning out
some material on the Spanish question for discussion within their ranks and
internationally. This study of the origins and course of the revolution of 1931-1937 is
not intended to be comprehensive but to deal with some of the highlights of this period of
history of the Spanish workers' movement.

Unless the Spanish Socialist Marxists have a clear conception of these events, they
will not be able to orient the movement and prepare policies in line with the perspectives
of Spain at the present time. The lessons of history, if they are not learned, point to
the situation where there can be an even more terrible debacle for the proletariat.

Marx and Engels worked out their theoretical conceptions on the basis of the experience
of the working class, which they generalised into theory. The conception of the
dictatorship of the proletariat was worked out by Marx on the basis o the experience of
the Paris Commune.

Lenin and Trotsky prepared the victory of the revolution of October 1917 in Russia by
the study of the lessons of the Paris Commune and the defeated revolution of 1905. Without
this, the success of the Russian Revolution would have been impossible. Similarly, without
a thorough study of the lessons of the defeated Spanish revolution, it will be impossible
for the victory of the Spanish Socialist revolution to be prepared in the coming days. The
history of Spain is rich in lessons. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed
to repeat it." That is why, especially with the difficulties of the Spanish comrades
in illegal conditions to have access to the necessary material, we make no apologies for
turning out material for discussion in Spain. We consider it our imperative, fraternal and
internationalist duty to discuss together with the Spanish comrades the class issues of
the coming revolution in order to try to assist, however modestly, in arming the cadres of
the Spanish Socialists for the tasks looming ahead. A victorious Spanish revolution would
be a victory for the working class of the whole of Europe and would prepare the collapse
of capitalism in Latin America and in parts of Africa. It has world-wide implications.
Spain is the key to the international situation. Therefore, the responsibility of the
leadership of the Spanish proletariat is all the greater. But the key to victory in Spain
lies in understanding the lessons, of the revolution of 1931-37. Trotsky once explained
that the heroism of the Spanish workers was such as to have made ten victorious
revolutions in the period of 1931-37. Therefore a study of the lessons of this period will
arm the cadres against repeating the mistakes of the past.

Spain even today remains a backward country where the tasks of the bourgeois democratic
revolution have not been carried out. The bourgeois-landlord regime with a narrow economic
base, and without mass support, was defeated in its colonial war against Morroccan
independence in 1921-1925 and had to be rescued by the armies of French Imperialism. This
inglorious and expensive adventure, with the exposure of the corruption and incompetence
of the Monarchist regime, led to the setting up of the Bonapartist-Military Police
dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. This, like all Bonapartist dictatorships, tried to
balance between the classes in order to maintain the power of the ruling class. The C.N.T.
Unions, the C.P. and the Anarchists were illegalised, but the Socialist Party and the
U.G.T. were allowed to maintain a legal existence. Caballero, leader of the U.G.T., even
became a Privy Councillor under the dictatorship!

With the world economic slump of 1929, the basis of the regime was undermined and in an
attempt to save the Monarchy the King dismissed Primo de Rivera in 1930. But the deepening
of the slump hit Spain hard, and the bourgeoisie and landlords tried to unload the burden
on to the shoulders of the workers and peasants. There was terrible suffering and hunger
among the workers and peasants as their already low standards and wages were cut by the
ruling class.

In the Municipal elections of April 1931 the towns, especially the big towns, with the
exception of Cadiz, voted overwhelmingly for the candidates of the Socialists and
Republicans.

In a rigged poll, in the countryside, under the pressure of the aristocracy and
landlords, Monarchists gained the majority. But this did not reflect the real feelings of
the peasants as events were to demonstrate - it merely showed the terror of the landlords
and their agents the Caciques.

In the towns, mass demonstrations of the workers took place when the election results
were announced. Spain was moving towards revolution; so powerful was the movement that the
Monarchy had to be sacrificed by the ruling class. Hurriedly Alfonso abdicated and fled
the country. The Republic was proclaimed. The revolution had begun. A "glorious,
peaceful, democratic era of reconciliation of the people had begun" according to the
Socialist and Republican leaders. After the elections which followed, a coalition of
Republicans and Socialists was formed. This coalition, because of the world capitalist
crisis and the crisis of capitalism and landlordism in Spain, was unable to carry out its
promises. A whole series of strikes of the workers were broken and repressed. Attempts by
the peasants to seize the land were answered by using the police and troops to suppress
these "illegal activities". The consequence of this was the growth of despair,
apathy and inertia among the working class, and especially among the peasants. The C.N.T.
and Anarchists engaged in a whole series of isolated seizures and local insurrections
which were bloodily repressed.

Ultra-leftism

The Communist Party, in common with all the parties of the then Communist
International, had the insane line of "Social Fascism", denouncing all other
tendencies in the labour movement as Social Fascists, and declaring the
Republican-Socialist coalition government to be a "Fascist government". Thus
they added to the confusion and disorganisation of the labour movement by this infantile
and ultra-left policy.

This coalition or "Popular Front" government, as the "Communist"
Party nowadays terms it, failed to solve a single one of the basic tasks of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution in Spain. (At the present time, by changing the name of
such a coalition with the liberals, the C.P. pretend to change the reality of class
relations.)

Today, within the ranks of the revolutionaries, within the Socialist Party in Spain,
there is still a lack of clarity in our opinion on this question of the
"bourgeois-democratic revolution" in Spain, so it is necessary to make a short
analysis of the question which is borne out by Spanish experience. For a hundred years the
incapacity of the Spanish capitalists to carry the bourgeois revolution to a conclusion
has always ended in the defeat of the revolution and the victory of reaction.

The Spanish bourgeoisie developed late on the scene like the Russian bourgeoisie. By
the time it was fully formed it was already being challenged for the supremacy and
leadership of the nation by the proletariat.

It had many links with the landowners and even the aristocracy. The banks had mortgages
on the land. The landowners invested in industry. The church was simultaneously the
biggest landowner and the biggest capitalist. Consequently the main task of the bourgeois
revolution, the re-distribution of the land and the expropriation of the landlord class,
as in Russia, could not be carried out by the capitalists without undermining the
capitalist system. Faced with this situation, the Republicans, like the Cadets
(Constitutional Democrats) in Russia, preferred always to do a deal with reaction.

As the description of events in Spain will show, the Republicans, representatives of
capitalism, could not solve the tasks of the bourgeois revolution.

Lenin and Trotsky, especially the latter, in a country with a similar social structure,
understood this problem. They led the workers to have an implacable and irreconcilable
attitude towards the cowardly, liberal representatives of capitalism.

With the theory of "Permanent Revolution" advanced by Trotsky even before the
1905 Revolution, he explained that because the capitalists, in consequence of their vested
interests, could not give the land to the peasants, take action against the Church and the
monarchy - the bureaucratic semi-feudal state, but would always attempt to compromise with
it, against the workers and peasants, then the task of carrying out the bourgeois
revolution falls to the proletariat. But the proletariat, having come to power, abolished
the monarchy and assisted the peasants to take the land, would not stop there. The
proletariat, having carried out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution with the support of
the peasants and petit-bourgeoisie, would not abandon power but would pass on to the
socialist tasks&emdash;by dispossessing the capitalists, but socialism cannot be built
in one country. With the accomplishment of the revolution in Russia, the revolution would
spread to the most advanced countries in Europe where the proletariat would be affected
and stirred by the Russian Revolution.

The revolution in Russia developed as worked out theoretically by Trotsky. It provoked
revolution in Germany, Austria and Hungary, and a revolutionary situation in France,
Britain and Italy.

For many reasons which cannot be dealt with here, none of these revolutions and
revolutionary situations ended in victory, and consequently the revolution in Russia was
isolated. This led to the reaction of Stalinism which was to take a terrible toll of the
revolutionary movement in the world, especially in Spain.

The Republican-Socialist coalition government of 1931-1933 was unable to solve the
problems facing the Spanish people because it was a government including representatives
of the capitalists. Peasants driven by hunger attempted to seize the land and were met by
bloody repression by the police and army. Workers striking for higher wages were met by
repression and force by the government. The despair and disillusionment of the workers and
peasants, paved the way for reaction, especially in the countryside.

In the journal of the Communist Party, International Press Correspondence, while
defending the policy of Popular Frontism, on Page 94 in its issue of 1st August 1936 there
is an article entitled "Secrets of Spain" which admits the failure of the
Republicans to solve the problems of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

"'Que te da de comer la Republica?' (What are the Republic giving you to eat?) ask
the peasants. This is one of the great questions in Spain. Where the land problem
dominates politics, because out of 4 Spaniards 3 are peasants [at that time - EG] ...
Extreme misery is without doubt a characteristic of them all ... About 1931, 1,173,000
peasants owned 6 million hectares and 105,000 landowners 12 million hectares. 5 million
land workers (agricultural proletarians) owned nothing ...

"In 1873 the first Republic promised the peasants land. It was overthrown because
it did not keep its promise. In 1931 the Republic of 14th April renewed the promise ...
The law was passed on 15th September. It affected a large number of tracts of land, which
were to be taken over with or without compensation... Also the feudal or non-feudal
properties of the Jesuits, as well as those of the Spanish grandes and the monarchists who
took part in the coup d'etat of Sanjurjo, were taken over without compensation - farms
cultivated or poorly cultivated - with compensation - in other words, the land was not
given to the peasants as freehold property: it was and is granted to them on lease, for
which they pay rent to the Institute (of Agrarian Reform) ' ..This law was a compromise
between the claim of the socialists and the resistance of the bourgeoisie; ... 5 years
after the establishment of the second Republic agrarian reform had hardly started..."

Caballero, leader of the left socialists, later condemned the socialist coalition with
the capitalists in the first years of the Republic, but did not draw all the necessary
conclusions from it.

By the time of the next elections in October 1933, reaction had taken advantage of the
failure of the Republicans and Socialists. Women had been enfranchised and came under the
pressure of the priests to vote for reactionary candidates. In the general disillusion,
the right republicans of Lerroux and the clerical fascists of Gil Robles made big gains.
The latter engaged in the usual demagogy of the fascists.

But the coming to power of Hitler in 1933, the crushing of the Austrian workers in
February 1934 alarmed the international working class. They saw the suppression of the
workers' organisations and the taking away of the hard-won rights of the German and
Austrian workers. They were reduced to the condition of slaves. The Spanish workers were
determined that the same thing would not happen to them.

Under the influence of this mood, Caballero secretly organised the importation of arms,
and armed many socialist militants. Caballero issued a warning, as the Lerroux government
moved further towards reaction and began discussions with the leader of the C.E.D.A. of
clerical fascism, Gil Robles. The working class would never tolerate the coming into the
government of the fascists as this would mean a move towards the destruction of their
organisations and rights.

Lerroux vacillated and then took the C.E.D.A. representatives into the Cabinet. The
Socialist Party replied by organising a general strike, and in the Asturias and in
Catalonia, armed insurrection.

This resulted in the seizure of Asturias by the workers, and the organisation of the
Asturian Commune. This could have succeeded were it not for the stupidity of the
anarchists. Arguing that this was a "struggle between politicians" and had not
the Republican-Socialist coalition suppressed and even shot them, they blacklegged and
even transported on the railways the troops sent to crush the Asturian Commune. The Moors
of the Foreign Legion under General Franco brutally crushed the movement.

Many workers were executed and tens of thousands imprisoned, but because the workers
had fought arms in hand, the spirit of resistance remained uncurbed. Unlike the betrayal
of the German workers by the Communist and Socialist Party leaders, it was impossible to
consolidate a fascist regime.

There followed the Bienio Negro (The Two Black Years) , but the struggle of the workers
continued. The Communist Party, at the behest of the Stalinist regime in Moscow, had
changed the "line". They dropped the Stalinist theory of "Social
Fascism" without explanation. In its place they put the discredited theory,
implacably condemned by Lenin, of coalition with the "Liberal" bourgeoisie,
which they refurbished, in order to make it more palatable to their members and the
working class, as the theory of the "People's Front" or "Popular
Front".

The bourgeoisie in Spain found themselves in difficulties. They could not maintain the
reactionary government in power. They felt the rising tide of resistance of the workers
and of the peasants. Under these conditions they had recourse to the "Strike-breaking
conspiracy" of the "People's Front" as Trotsky termed it. The POUM and the
Anarchists joined with the Socialist Party, Communist Party and "left"
Republican Parties to form the Popular Front.

Because of the experience of the workers of the "left" Republicans in the
period of 1931-1933, they were distrustful of the Republicans, and the leaders of the
Communist and Socialist Parties, behind the scenes to their members, presented the
People's Front as a "manoeuvre" where they were "using" the liberal
leaders. That is the way they persuaded their members to accept it.

However, in the elections of February 1936, because of the rising tide of
radicalisation of the workers and of the peasants, the Popular Front slate was victorious.
As a result of the Popular Front agreement the left Republicans were given far more seats
to contest than their real support in the population would warrant, with the result that
their number of deputies as compared with the workers' parties was inflated. The Popular
Front secured 268 seats, of which the bourgeois left republicans held 153. The Communist
Party won 16 seats and the Socialist Party 98. The right wing parties secured 157 seats,
and the so-called centre parties 48 seats. However, the vote for the right was inflated by
the terror and intimidation especially in the villages. So in reality the Popular Front
victory was much greater.

The working class, which had learned to distrust the liberals through bitter experience
between 1931 and 1933, immediately moved into action. Within days, by direct action they
carried out the Popular Front programme: holidays with pay, 44 hour week and wage
increases were imposed on the employers. Without waiting for an amnesty the workers
marched to the jails, tore down the walls where necessary, and released the 30,000
political prisoners still languishing there as a result of the general strike and the
Asturian insurrection. They imposed conditions on the employers not in the Popular Front
programme.

The reason for the Popular Front victory in the elections is indicated in the
International Press Correspondence of 4th April 1936, Page 461.

"...Not one of the questions raised by the Bourgeois-Democratic revolution has
been solved. On the contrary, they have become more acute. The unbearable political,
social and economic situation which the parties of the right, by their reactionary and
fatal policy, have created for the toiling masses, the workers, peasants, clerks, small
shopkeepers, etc.

"The great experience which the masses have acquired in all their former
struggles, and above all, from the insurrectionary movements of October 1934, the heroic
deeds of the workers of Asturias.

WORKERS UNDER ATTACK

"...The 2 years of government of the Radicals and the C.E.D.A. were characterised
by a constant state of emergency. The workers and peasants were deprived of all their
achievements. The strikes and movements of the workers and peasants for their demands and
for immediate improvements were brutally throttled and suppressed Attacks upon and murders
of workers by the Fascist gangs, who were protected by the Government were a 'normal'
everyday occurrence in Spain. Workers' organisations were persecuted and dissolved and
their premises closed, meetings and conferences of workers were prohibited.

"...100 death sentences, 30,000 imprisoned and tortured ... The landowners and
capitalists reduced the wages and worsened the already miserable living conditions of the
workers ... The wages of the workers in the towns were reduced from 10-12 pesetas to 4-5
pesetas. Wages in the countryside were reduced from 8-9 pesetas to 1.50 pesetas for men
and 60 centimes for women for a working day lasting from sunrise to sunset ...

"Unemployment increased from 536,100 in 1933 to 780,242 in 1935. As a matter of
fact, however, there are more than 11 million unemployed in Spain. The Budget for 1933
provided 873 million pese tas for public works, but the 1935 Budget provided only 628
million..."

In its issue of 29th February 1936, the I.P.C. deals with the results of the election
victory.

"...But Spain shows also something else, namely that the People's Front is not a
Parliamentary Coalition (?!).

"...The working people of Spain, however, gathered in the streets and shouted out
with firm resolution 'We are not going to wait until Parliament meets and repeals or does
not repeal the reactionary laws! Open the workers' clubs and meeting places at once! Open
the prison gates at once!'

"The armed forces appeared on the scene. But like the glorious fighters of the Commune
and every people's revolution, the masses fraternised with the troops; they won them over
to their side ...

"...The fate of the coup d'etat (being prepared by Franco and the Generals) was
thereby sealed. Of course the gates of the prisons were opened, just as the doors of the
workers' clubs and meeting places had already been opened...

"...The state and municipal employees and also other workers who had been
dismissed during and after October 1934 for having taken part in the fighting were
reinstated and on the other hand, many employees who had acted as strikebreakers in
October were dismissed (in the Madrid municipality alone over 1,000). The reactionary
agrarian measures were rescinded.

"...We read in the London Sunday papers that the Chief of the General Staff,
General Franco, the friend of Gil Robles, and General Goded the Chief of the Air Force,
who were at the head of the proposed military coup d'�tat were simply removed from their
positions instead of being stood up against the wall. It is highly probable that all the
authorities, all the judges who took part in crushing and sentencing the October fighters
are still holding their positions."

Independent action

The masses moved independently. What was necessary was to organise them, to increase
and strengthen their distrust of the Liberal Government. As the Liberal News Chronicle of
July 20th 1936 announced of the programme of Azana's Government "...With the support
of the left (who still refused actually to join the Government) his (Azana's E.G.)
Government announced a programme which was nothing more radical than a return to the
constitution of 1931, with quite ordinary reforms such as schools, publics works and the
revision of the banking system". It was necessary to begin the setting up of
independent committees and prepare the taking of power by the masses. They clearly were
not prepared to rely on the discredited liberals. In the same issue of I.P.C. on page 294
in a letter from Spain, it reports in a way that unconsciously condemns root and branch
the whole policy of Popular Frontism.

"...The masses of the people are reaping the fruits of their victory in a way very
different from what happened after the fall of the monarchy in 1931. While at that time
the masses poured on to the streets with a great deal of noise and rejoicing their action
now is much calmer and more far-reaching ...

"In general the movement of the masses all over the country is aimed at
independent action. All the efforts of the Government and its press to hold the masses
back have only had the effect of increasing their militant spirit and strengthening their
desire to act on their own".

Claridad, the organ of the Left Socialist Largo Caballero, writes as follows:

"We shall be on the side of the Government in order to help it to carry out the
Joint Programme with all the necessary determination, even if this programme does not
satisfy us entirely. We will, however, not give the Government our unreserved confidence
as we did from 1931-1933. The lesson was too hard, and we will not renounce our right to
criticise in order to maintain the vigilance of the working class, which is now marching
forward to the final goal of our class, and, at the slightest sign of weakening, to set
the working class itself against its present allies."

This course, dictated by the distrust of the "Liberal" capitalist
representatives by the masses, and their pressure, was nevertheless false. It should have
been the duty of the "Left" Socialists to put no trust in the lying promises of
the Liberals in the circumstances of Spain at that time. They should have reinforced and
strengthened the distrust of the masses and prepared for the inevitable struggle by
constructing organs of an incipient character even at that stage. That was what the masses
were striving for even if inarticulately and in a certain sense unconsciously, as
indicated by the attitude and actions of the workers parties.

Behind the screen, under the protection of the Popular Front government, the conspiracy
of the Generals, monarchists and fascists began immediately. A comedy of musical chairs
began. Franco was transferred to the Canary Islands, General Sanjurjo and Del Llano were
moved to Balearics and Morocco and to Seville. The Army Command was shuffled around.

The Syndicalist, Socialist and even Communist Party press were warning of the danger of
a fascist or military uprising. But the Socialist Party and C.P. all exhorted the
Government "to take action".

This was impossible, if one accepts the Marxist analysis of class society. The power of
capitalism depends on the power of the state machine, such is composed of the Army,
police, courts, prisons, etc. The ruling class, both in its liberal and conservative or
fascist form depends on the support of army generals and officers of the army caste,
police officers and the top civil servants, who have been specially selected and picked
and educated to serve the capitalist system. To take action against these would be to
undermine and destroy the whole basis of the capitalist state. To ask the liberals to do
this is like asking a tiger to turn vegetarian. For class reasons this is impossible!

That is why, right up to the insurrection, the bleats of the workers' leaders about the
Government "taking action", if it had any effect, merely tended to lull the
working class and to prevent them from taking the necessary action themselves.

The Popular Front Government did not take any action against the Fascist Army Officers.
How could they when it meant the destruction of the state machine on which the ruling
class relies?

At the same time the big capitalists, lavishly supplying them with funds, unleashed
their reserve weapon: the Fascist bands against the organisations of the working class. A
little over two months after the "Great Victory", Cesar Falcon was complaining
in the International Press Correspondence pages:

"Since the electoral victory of the people, the Fascist gangs, recovered from the
momentary dismay...incited by the reactionary leaders, and especially by the big
landowners, have started a campaign of provocation and assault extending-all over the
country...Madrid ... villages..,with the full co-operation of the Fascist elements in the
Army and in the Civil Guard ... They relied mainly on the passivity of the Popular Front
Government.

"The Ministry of the Interior which had pledged itself to a constitutional and
tolerant attitude, hesitated (?) to take those vigorous measures which both the nature of
the offence and popular opinion were demanding ... assault on the Socialist Deputy for
Madrid ... The young students belonging to the Spanish Falange tried to murder Largo
Caballero and bomb the home of Ortega y Gasset - Liberal...The leniency of the Government
only drove the Fascists further.

"Jiminez Asua - S.S.P. Madrid Deputy - The Fascists immediately replied by murdering a
judge...What speedy and drastic steps were then taken against the Fascist provocateurs and
criminals ? Not one"

Constantly up to the period of the Army uprising in July 1936, the workers parties were
appealing to the "Popular Front" Liberal Government to "Take action"
They behaved as the Social Revolutionary and Menshevick leaders behaved after the February
Revolution in 1917. Also the Bolshevicks under the leadership of Kamenev and Stalin, up
till the arrival of Lenin, used the formula "support for the Provisional Government
in so far as..." It was Lenin's April Theses opposing this and demanding preparations
for a new revolution, patiently explaining this to the masses, which won the overwhelming
support of the rank and file, making the victory of the Russian revolution possible.

Adoption of this standpoint of the Spanish C.P. and S.P. would have resulted in the
shipwreck of the revolution. The policies of the leaders of these parties were as if
plagiarised from the policies of Menshevism and Social Revolutionarism. More correctly
they were a helpless response to the pressures of class conflict and their failure to
implement clear class policies.

Officers' treachery

After gaining the promises of the Government to take action and dissolve the Fascist
organisations, two months later in the issue of June 4th of I.P.C., Vincent Uribes writes,
"the courts of justice, before which the Fascists are brought, either aquit them, or
sentence them to two months imprisonmetn, a mere parody of justice. In inumerable cases
Fascists have been acquited of charges of murder. This mildness and complicity where
Fascists are concerned contrasts vividly with the barbarous penalties imposed on the
workers during the period in which reaction was in power, and with the punishment still
dealt out by the courts to workers found with arms in their possession".

The courts, the police, the army and the Civil Service top layers are the basis of the
State, and consequently it was baying at the moon to expect the Liberal politicians who
represent the bourgeois to destroy their own state machine and leave themselves entirely
without defence from any assault by the masses, especially as the army officers had gone
over overwhelmingly to the reaction

In its issue of July 4th the I.P.C. reported in an article entitled "Secrets of
Spain": "There are only a few Republican officers. I was told that there were 3%
... then an officer who works for the chief of staff told me...'Your informant is an
optimist ... there are perhaps 100 officers of whom one can be fairly sure'..."

Army generals and officers ignored orders, fraternised with Fascists and provoked the
workers into conflicts. They ceaselessly prepared a bloody settlement with the workers.

Meanwhile, the Popular Front was incapable of carrying out fundamental reforms - in the
interests of the workers and peasants. The land question had bedevilled Spain for more
than a century and a half.

The Liberals were incapable of solving the problem of the Bourgeois democratic
revolution.

Castrillo Santos in his book "Four years of Republican experiment 1931-35"
declared: "95% of the total agricultural undertakings in Spain .comprise only about 5
million hectares of land, whilst 0.35% of the total comprise 9m. hectares. One million
owners possess 6m. hectares, whilst 100,000 owners possess 12 million hectares. These
statistics represent in the last resort the social problems of Spanish agriculture...'

I.P.C. says in its issue of June 4th : "30,000 landowners own two thirds of
Spain" and commenting on the role of the Spanish capitalists says:- "Sabotage of
the agrarian revolution when it has gained office with the assistance of the revolutionary
forces, and then a repentant return to the camp of reaction in order to crush with its
assistance the rebellious workers and poor

In the 6 months of the Popular Front, 190,000 landless peasants gained land. This was
two and a half percent of the peasants.

In the articles "Secrets of Spain" continued in the issue of August 1936 page
27, it deals with the attitude of the capitalists and big landowners ... "In words
they declared their readiness to reconcile themselves to the democratic republic which had
been created in Spain. But actually they began with economic sabotage and underhand
intrigues immediately after the overthrow of their government.

"The financial oligarchy began to transfer its capital abroad. The most despicable
stock exchange sharks began to undermine the standard of the Peseta ... the big
manufacturers demanded the annulment of the government measures which were intended to
alleviate the want of the broad masses of the people, failing which they threatened
lock-outs.

"The big landlords, supported by the big bankers, threatened a 'strike' by
declaring that unless the government desisted from its plans for agrarian reform... they
would not proceed with the autumn sowing ... the government displayed extreme tolerance
towards the reactionary elements who had suffered a common defeat at the elections.
Despite the warnings and advice of the workers organisations, the leaders of the
monarchists and the Fascists were allowed to remain in freedom, even remaining in high
positions in the army, the navy and inside the state machine...

"The condition of the peasants and the land workers was that of starvation and
semi-starvation. Less than one in forty received any land as a result of land reform:
190,000 out of 8 million, ... There are villages in Hurdes in La Mancha ... where the
peasants in absolute despair revolt no longer. They eat roots and fruit ... Thirty miles
from Madrid, the villagers exist on soup made from bread, water, oil and vinegar...

"The Caciques still have some power ... the usurers are still carrying on their
rapacious business and not all the big landowners have been dispossessed. One has seen how
in Almedralejo, in the province of Badajoz, twenty millionaires are systematically
starving one of the richest corners of Spain by refusing even to discuss the question of
the wages of the land workers...Not all the land is under cultivation.

"...What has the Republic given you to eat? Things should be speeded up to the
starved peasants it seems ... The peasant leaders calculate that the agrarian law plans
50,000 settlements a year, which means that it will take 20 years to settle a million
peasants: more than a century to give land to all".

In Russia, before the October revolution, the bourgeoisie reckoned that it would take
about a quarter century to measure out and divide the land and therefore land reform was
impractical. The peasants under the leadership of the working class and of the Bolshevick
Party achieved the agrarian revolution in days by seizing the land.

In Spain too, the peasants began to seize the land, but unlike the Bolsheviks, neither
the Socialist or Communist Party leaders made it their policy to carry out the agrarian
revolution.

The peasants provide the broad infantry of the revolution. The working class under
modern conditions is the decisive class and the driving force in the revolution. In Spain
the gains in wages made by working class militancy were cancelled out by inflation. There
were constant clashes between workers and employers. The police and the Fascists were used
by the bosses to try and terrorise the working class. All these attempts failed. The
workers were tempered and fired in the struggle. They were not demoralised by the failures
of the trade union and Socialist and Communist leaders to press home the attack. The
reaction grew more and more alarmed.

Daily clashes

After the murder of Calvo Sotelo, spokesman for monarchist reaction and Fascism, by
civil guard policemen in reprisal for the murder of their Socialist police lieutenant by
the Fascists, both the Fascists and Monarchists withdrew from parliament. This was in
preparation for the Fascist rising.

This incident merely precipitated the preparations being made by the army generals
since the February elections. The capitalists were thoroughly alarmed by the mood and
combativity of the working class. Economically, financially, politically, they could see
no other way out than the crushing of the organisations of the working class.

Daily clashes were taking place between the workers and the Fascists. On July 5th 1936
the Times reported: "Two Fascists were murdered on Thursday ... As a reprisal men
armed with a sub-machine gun opened fire on Friday night on a group of men who were
leaving their union headquarters, killing two and injuring five".

On July 13th the Times reported that on the previous day "six armed men entered
the union broadcasting station at Valencia ... and after having overpowered the speaker
and his assistant, one of them announced through the microphone that Fascist forces had
seized all the strategic points of the town. The men had disappeared before the police
could arrive.

"In spite of the lateness of the hour, Republican (?) and other left groups
organised a demonstration of protest, which paraded the streets. The mob set fire to the
headquarters of the Regional Party, which is the principal party of the right, and the
building was destroyed. (There was an) attempt to burn the buildings of the newspaper ...
The house of the right politician Senor Lucia and the furniture of one of the largest
cafes ... several political clubs of the right wing were set on fire"

The economic situation is indicated in the report of the Times of July 14th 1936 almost
on the eve of the insurrection. "The budgetary deficit has become chronic. The Peseta
is sinking whilst trade languishes owing to the rising costs of production and failure to
pay imports."

Showdown

The capitalists felt the need to crush the trade unions and workers organisations so
that they could drive down the living standards of the workers. Because of the economic
and political impasse in which they found themselves, one conflict after the other had
been taking place between the workers and the bosses in industry and on the land. There
were 113 general strikes and 228 partial strikes between February and July in the cities
and towns of Spain. Therefore the capitalists were demanding that "order" must
be restored, i.e. that terror must be used to subjugate the working class.

The classes were preparing their forces for the showdown. The Times of July 15th 1936
reported that "the monarchists and traditionalists issued a statement: Senor Calvo
Sotelo's murder was a true 'state crime' without precedent in Spain."

".. It (murder) had become possible as a result of the incitement to violence
against deputies of the right expressed in parliament. The note adds that the Monarchists
cannot continue to collaborate in state plunged in anarchy."

On the other hand Lieutenant Castillo's funeral was arranged for 6 a.m. by the
authorities to try and prevent demonstrations. In spite of this there were immense crowds.
The body was saluted with clenched fists. The coffin was draped in a red flag ...
Socialist militias with banners paraded.

The stage was being set for a struggle to the death between the workers and forces of
capitalism and landlordism. The entire false policy of the leaders of the labour movement
from February and throughout the civil war was indicated in the statement of Largo
Caballero in an interview with the London News Chronicle on July 9th 1936, "Do you
believe that the change from this Republican government to a Socialist government will be
accomplished by a ballot? ... That I do not know, really there would be no Republicans
without us. We are their strength and if we withdraw our support they are gone."

Significant words when one considers the course of the civil war and the actions of
Largo Caballero and other workers' leaders in the ensuing conflict.

The army generals and officers had been preparing the rising from the first days of the
Popular Front government. From July l7th the rising began in Morocco and the Canary
Islands. The Popular Front Government tried to hide the news from the Spanish people. When
it could no longer be suppressed, Quiroga the prime minister, and the government tried to
pretend that this did not affect the mainland. The Madrid radio under the control of the
government announced on July 18th that "no-one, absolutely no-one on the Spanish
mainland, has taken part in this absurd plot, which would be quickly suppressed".(The
Times 20th July 1936)

The news of the revolt had been radioed to the workers by the sailors of the Spanish
fleet who seized the ships in the Morroccan harbours.

100,000 workers in Madrid demonstrated demanding arms. Quiroga, the primer minister
refused announcing that "anyone who gave arms to the workers without his orders would
be shot". Meanwhile, throughout Andalusia according to the arrangements of the
conspirators, risings began. Even according to Hugh Thomas, the academic
"historian" of the Civil War: "nearly everywhere on the 18th of July the
civil governors in the large towns followed the example of the government in Madrid, and
refused to cooperate fully (!) with the working class organisations who were clamouring
for arms". (page 185 of "The Spanish Civil War")

In Seville, Granada and Cordoba the Fascist officers were successfull, becasuse after
demonstrating and demanding arms the workers were persuaded by the S.P. and C.P. leaders
to go to their homes. The same night the officers armed with lists went to the workers
quarters and summarily executed every T.U. secretary, C.P. secretary, S.P. secretary and
prominent militants on whom they could lay their hands.

Quiroga's government tried to reach a compromise with the Fascist Generals. The Quiroga
government resigned and an even more right wing government of Martinez Barrios took their
place.

Compromise

They wanted to make an agreement with the Fascist officers.that a right-wing government
could make a compromise.

Had it depended on the liberals the position would have been lost to fascism without
struggle. They feared the movement of the masses far more than they feared the coming to
power of Franco. This was a class question. Without the treachery of the bourgeois
liberals, the fascists would never have been able to seize any of the towns in Spain. The
insurrection would have been stillborn. But much as they feared a fascist Spain, the
liberal politicians feared an armed working class a thousand times more.

The Government remained passive in the face of the onslaught of the army. The
pathological class fear of the liberals of an armed working class is shown by the reports
from all over Spain. It is best indicated by the situation in Valencia more than two weeks
after the insurrection. Out of the report of the Communist Party official journal IPC
itself in its issue of 5th August 1936 page 987 under the heading: "VALENCIA"

"For fourteen days, since July 18th, a mutineer troop of the 18th cavalry regiment
had kept the town in constant insecurity. The workers of Valencia, half of them members of
the UGT, half of them CNT had been demanding for days that the population should be armed.
In order to reinforce the militia and the regulars (how many? EG) making them strong
enough to storm this fascist nest. The Government members of the national Republican Union
of Valencia (the moderate republican trend of tlartinez Barrios) vacillated and finally
refused to distribute arms. There upon the workers declared a General Strike, which had
already gone on two days before the pressure of the masses finally made the Government and
the military leaders decide on open action to take the cavalry barracks ... within a few
minutes the workers created barricades of motor lorries...the anti-fascist militia, the
soldiers and the workers strengthened their positions and were ready to storm in spite of
the irresolution of the leaders ... the workers stormed into the barracks and took the
rifles without asking anyone."

This speaks volumes for the attitude of the bourgeois "Peoples Front"
"Allies" of the Communist Party. It hardly requires comment.

However, to the insurrection and counter revolution of the fascists the revolution of
the working class came in reply. Beginning with the immortal workers of Barcelona the
working class took the initiative.

Responding to the call of the sailors, who, in many cases had thrown the fascist
officers overboard, the Barcelona workers marched against the army.

Quoting again the Stalinist correspondent of the IPC in the same article under the
heading of "BARCELONA"

"Events have completely refuted the reformist theory according to which it is
impossible for the working class in towns with modern broad streets to stand up to an army
equipped with modern weapons. The masses of the people of Madrid, Barcelona and dozens of
other towns in Spain, with a few pistols, daggers and their bare fists, have rendered an
army hors de combat ... Barcelona ... the workers told us how the first machine gun was
captured: they ran across the huge square with only a small force in the middle as cover,
in the front ranks against a raging fire, the workers in the front ranks fell dead or
wounded, but no one wavered, the advance continued till the workers captured the machine
gun...when the artillery batteries appeared in the street ... the workers mounted light
motor lorries and drove suddenly from side streets, at speeds of 120 km.p.h. into the
flank of the artillery."

"Madrid

"With the exception of the flying corps, the whole garrison mutinied and it was
the masses of workers the Young Socialists,Communists and Republicans who mobilise with
amazing rapidity and determination and captured the main positions of the fascist
uprising."

According to the reports of the bourgeois correspondents the courage and ingenuity of
the workers was unsurpassed. They marched against the barracks with legs of chairs, table
knives and a few sporting guns snatched by breaking into sporting shops.

The Times of July 24th 1936 reports from Barcelona... "San Marti... streets
swarming with men...carrying army carbines and pistols ... armed women... in some lorries
... we have taken all the arms from the San Andreu barracks".

Whole books could be written about the way in which an unarmed working class
spontaneously, without guidance from their leaders marched into action against the threat
of fascism and defeated the fascists in most of the towns and in two thirds of Spain.
Without the vacillation of the Communist Party and Socialist Party leadership in the
South, it would have been all of Spain.

But now in so called Republican Spain the army was smashed. The police had disappeared
and there was only one decisive armed force - the working class.

In the analysis of society made by Marx and Lenin they explained that the power of the
state can be reduced to armed bodies of men and their appendages: courts, prisons, etc. In
that sense the workers had smashed the capitalist state. They held the power: the
"Republican Government" was suspended in midair. Most of the factory owners had
fled and were supporting Franco.The workers seized the factories and began operating them
without the capitalists.

The workers were instinctively trying to change society and begin the Socialist
revolution. The capitalist class supported Franco. Azana and company represented nothing.
The leaders of the proletariat refused to accept this initiative of the masses. They made
a coalition not with the capitalists but with the shadow of the capitalists: as Trotsky
put it, the lawyers, M.P's etc. of the liberal parties who in this situation represented
nobody but themselves

The capitalists understood the situation clearly. The before quoted correspondent in
the same despatch continued his report to the Times by stating what one of the armed
workers said to him: "A man told me ... many officers got away and the others were
arrested. The soldiers were told they could go where they liked. Is it not nice that the
workers should have arms and power." This rank and file worker understood as
undoubtedly did instinctively the mass of the workers that the power was de facto in their
hands. It was the leaders of their own organisations who blocked the path of the Socialist
revolution and thus betrayed the revolution and led it on the road of a terrible defeat.

The spokesmen of the capitalist class understood clearly what was at issue. They posed
the problem in serious terms, if from the opposing pole of the class struggle as the
Marxists did. On July 23rd 1936 an article in the Times commented soberly: "An armed
proletariat was in possession of the city (Barcelona). Who was to disarm them? What would
the sequel be? Had the uprising of military and armed forces merely paved the way for
proletarian rule in Catalonia? Such were the questions on every tongue, and at the
government "war" headquarters it was evident that this question was of paramount
concern".

Again indicating the real situation, the Times of July 25th reported: "Barcelona:
revolutionary committees composed of anarchists and communists have intervened in
factories to an extent that seems nothing short of their seizure...the office and
technical staff are working under the watch of the proletarians ... Catalan government
issued decree declaring their intention to intervene in all banking in the
region...appointing a banking commission" (Thus they prevented the workers from
seizing control of the banks, a vital measure without which the developing socialist
revolution could not go forward. Marx pointed out that the failure of the Paris Commune to
seize the banks as a first step, was one of the main factors in its downfall. One of the
first steps of the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution was the taking over of the
banks.)

Dual power

"...Your correspondent has just obtained permission from the revolutionary
committee at Puigcerda to return to Barcelona..."

This shows the existence of what Marxists have termed dual power. The government in
Barcelona and Madrid had no armed forces on which they could rely. They were suspended by
a thread. They could only exist by the toleration of the leadership of the workers parties
who were not prepared to brush them aside and thus betrayed the revolution. For the time
being they had to tolerate the workers incipient power. Participating in this betrayal or
lack of understanding, was the leadership of all the workers parties: the socialists,
anarchists, poumists and above all, as the main force of counter revolution in the workers
camp, the leadership of the Communist party. They resisted all the strivings of the
workers and aborted the growing revolution.

In an article in the liberal News Chronicle of July 21st the correspondent relates:

"My night's journey by car from Madrid to Barcelona...we were stopped every few miles by either gendarmes or pickets of workmen or peasants.

"... They (men of the Popular Front) attribute the collapse of their people in the
southern cities partly to the fact that in Seville and Granada, for instance, the local
authorities failed to act on the instructions (?) of the central Government and arm the
workmen." (As we have already quoted Casares Quiroga, there were no instructions by
the central Government. The liberal republicans igound themselves without police or armed
forces).

The Chronicle correspondent continued...

"The part of Catalonia adjoing the French
border is in the hands of a revolutionary committee composed partly of anarchists and
partly of communists . The Soviet flag (Red Flag - EG) is flying on the town hall of
Puigcerda... Popular Front composed partly of workmen, partly of peasants..."

On July 23rd the News Chronicle wrote of "Crews of practically all the war ships
seize control..." On the same date this journal of the Liberal capitalists in
Britain, blood brothers of the Republican Bourgeois party in Spain wrote in fear and
trepidation "Whatever might have been the menace of communism [i.e. the socialist
revolution - EG] before the fascist generals chose it as a pretext to rise against the
republic, it is a reality now".

"Socialist and Communist militia and their elements in the army and navy have been
the backbone of the defence against the fascist onslaught. They are fighting for the
republic and the Popular Front but under the red flag.

"The red flag flies from Malaga as well as banners marked 'Union Hermanos
Proletarios' - the sign made famous by the proletarian insurrection in the Asturias.

"If the generals are beaten will the crews of the warships that have had a taste
of blood and the troops that have worsted their officers be prepared to knuckle down even
to republican officers and the workers of the cities be reconciled to a bourgeois republic
which they practically alone defended?"

Revolution betrayed

The same issue contained the following item "In Northern Catalonia yesterday
communists, socialists and anarchists, armed with weapons captured from defeated rebel
troops, are in control. At Puigcerda the workers army seized the town hall, took control
of the city." On July 24th the correspondent reports... "Talking with these
members of the workers militia ... hardened labourers, skilled artisans, young apprentices
... Algeciras ... fire set on fascist homes by workers ... though town occupied by fascist
army...the Republicans see the regime already smashed. The Popular Front is ancient
history now.

It is hard to imagine the socialist, communist and syndicalist elements that have borne
the brunt of the fighting for the defence of the republic in the South continuing under
the tutelage of a handful of purely bourgeois republicans."

This "handful of bourgeois republicans" was to retain decisive control
because of the policy of the leadership of all the workers organisations - anarchists,
Poumist, socialist and communist. In one way or another they betrayed the heroic
spontaneous reaction to the fascist uprising. They betrayed the elementary class movement
of the workers, by collaborating with the rotten republican bourgeois leaders, who by this
time represented nobody but themselves.

In this dirty work of "Democratic" counter revolution the leadership of the
Communist Party played the principal part. They did this under the instructions of Stalin.
By this time the parties of the Communist International had become agents of the foreign
policy of the Russian bureaucracy. The latter was terrified that a successful socialist
revolution in Spain, or in any other country of Western Europe would undermine their power
and lead to their overthrow, and the restoration of workers democracy in Russia. In fact
the revolution in Spain stirred the Russian workers more than any event since the
usurpation of power by Stalin. In attempting to maintain their power, through Stalin, the
bureaucracy were compelled to launch the "Witchcraft trials", murder practically
all the leaders of the revolution and the old Bolsheviks, murdering hundreds of thousands
of the rank and file of the Communist Party. This was due partly to the repercussions of
the revolution in Spain. Victory to Spanish socialism would have sounded the death knell
for the Soviet bureaucracy.

In addition to which the bureaucrats were not concerned with revolutionary diplomacy,
as under Lenin, but purely nationalist considerations. They wanted at that time, to
placate the capitalists of Britain and France, to gain an alliance against Germany. They
did not wish to upset this by a revolutionary conflagration which would have spread to
France and destroy entirely the world political and social equilibrium.

In Spain the Communist Party set the pace for the betrayal of the revolution and thus
the terrible defeat of the working class. But the Communist Party was not the decisive
element. Far more powerful were the anarchists and the socialist party, the CNT and the
UGT.

The anarchists betrayed every principle of anarchism, let alone of socialism. The
tenets not to support any Government by entering the Bourgeois Government at a time when
the basis of such a Government, in the real relationships of class forces had disappeared.

The Prieto right wing socialists stood for collaboration with the republican
bourgeoisie, but at that moment would have carried little weight with the rank and file,
had Caballero and the left wing of the socialist party stood firmly against such a course,
as did Lenin and Trotsky in Russia in 1917, the situation would have changed
fundamentally. The position was far more favourable objectively than in Russia after the
revolution of February 1917, The workers were practically the only armed force. They
endeavoured to seize industry, as the peasants endeavoured to seize the land. Thus the
workers heralded the attempt at socialist revolution that they were instinctively trying
to undertake.

Had Caballero and the left socialists organised committees of workers or Soviets, in
the factories and districts and advocated the setting up of a workers Government, getting
rid of the remnants of the capitalists and the representatives of the republicans -
capitalist politicians who no longer reflected, directly at least, their class: There was
nothing to stand in the way of organising a workers Government and thus a victorious
working class who could then have waged a socialist struggle against Franco.

The POUMists in Catalonia dragged at the tail of the anarchists and entered the
Bourgeois Government in Catalonia. Thus preparing their terrible fate at the hands of the
Stalinists.

Caballero, surrendered to the pressure of the Stalinists and instead of launching the
struggle for power - this is an exaggeration, it would have been only a question of
brushing aside the discredited republican representatives only of themselves - by calling
on the workers to set up their revolutionary juntas and organising socialist power and the
dictatorship of the proletariat. The Stalinists would have been unable to resist. Had they
done so they would have lost the overwhelming majority of their worker followers. The
anarchists would have been compelled to follow this lead. The POUM (centrists standing
between reformism and marxism) would have supported and the Prieto wing of the socialist
party would have been isolated and incapable of resistance. A workers Government could
then have begun a revolutionary socialist war against Franco and appealed to the
international working class for support. Caballero and the left socialists failed to
understand the opportunity and the dangers and thus inevitably prepared the way for the
trushing of the revolution and then the victory of Franco.

The Daily Worker of July 27th 1936, reported a speech by the leader of the British
Communist Party, Harry Pollitt:

"In the light of present events it can now be seen that a great mistake was made
in not removing all the army officers opposed to the people's front.

"... the aim (of the counter-revolution) undoubtedly was to destroy the people's
Spain and to safeguard the interests of the landlords, feudal families, big capitalists
and monarchists, and to check any further possibility of the workers advancing.

"... The workers of the World behind the Spanish people means victory..."

Thus the futile demand that the bourgeois Republicans dismantle the bulwark of
Bourgeois rule - the guardian of its domination and property rights - the Army; is
repeated just when the spontaneous movement of the proletariat has demonstrated its
stupidity, its lulling of the Proletariat - leaving them defenceless before the reaction.
As well ask the capitalists to voluntarily donate their property to the proletariat, as
was done by the Utopian Socialists' as ask them to dismantle the apparatus of their rule -
the State machine armed bodies of men and their various appendages.

The actions of the Fascists were determined by the interests of the landlords, feudal
families, and big capitalists, says Pollitt, and was repeated ad nauseum by the leaders of
the Communist Parties of the world. But to overthrow them was precisely the task of the
Socialist Revolution. To "defend property" and "order" was to defend
the interests of the organisers and financiers of the Fascist counter-revolution. The
words of the C.P. leaders were hopelessly in contradiction. They betrayed the workers
while making, anti-capitalist statements inconsistently.

Workers' militia

On July 27th 1936 Frank Pitcairn, the correspondent of the 'Daily Worker' in Barcelona,
wrote:

"...Among the demands already put forward by various organisations, however,
are the immediate nationalisation of the entire merchant marine, and the handing over of a
number of vital factories to the trade unions..."

"...The workers armed militias will remain a permanent defence corps, taking over
most of the functions of the army. Large numbers of soldiers sent officially on leave to
be beyond the influence of Fascist officers have already enrolled in the militia."

And again on July 29th:

"...Everywhere I found calm confidence and swift progress
as the workers develop their control of affairs in the defence against Fascism.

"...For example, at Tarrega the President of the local committee told me 'The
Socialisation of all essential products has been an accomplished fact here since last
Wednesday.' 'Corn, olives, wine, and all the other main agricultural produce of the area
are now the property of the workers, through their co-operatives. This years crops will be
entirely owned by the poor peasants. It was first necessary to carry out the
reorganisation of the landowner's co-operative which, until last week, consisted of both
poor and rich peasants with the latter naturally dominating policy. Now the big
landowners...have been rejected ... the co-operative, which is entirely in the hands of
the poor peasants, has taken over all the crops.'

"These co-operatives were under the supreme control of the defence committee, on
which the Labour Alliance, and the small bourgeois parties, are also represented...

"...We are now working not for the rich, but for ourselves and for the workers of
Barcelona and other cities of Catalonia.

"...Barcelona ... there is strict control of prices and heavy fine are imposed for
profiteering.

"...The Anarchists have issued instructions for the formation of flying squads to
deal with looters."

These quotations in the early days of the Revolution show the situation developing in
Spain - the workers wanted to make the Revolution and the peasants of Catalonia and Aragon
- following their lead seized the land going further than the Russian peasants in the
early days of the Revolution - and collectivised the land.

Harry Pollitt, writing in the Daily Worker of July 29th from Paris:

"...The Fascists had made their preparations well. When the signal for the revolt
was given a fortnight ago only one regiment in the whole of Catalonia had refused to
join.

"But the initiative and daring of the masses quickly made itself felt. Seizing
what arms were available, the workers took the field and, in 36 hours, had crushed the
Fascist rising in and around Barcelona.

"The workers militia stormed the barracks, captured rifles and artillery,
improvised primitive tanks, captured the radio centres and quickly passed from the
defensive to the offensive.

"Soldiers in the rebel regiments began to desert to the side of the workers
militia. Those who were captured were interned in the barracks and workers were sent to
fraternise with them and explain the foul work for which their officers had tried to use
them..."

Thus the class lines were clearly drawn. All it required was for the workers, under
Marxist leadership, to organise their own state, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and
begin a revolutionary war against Franco. Yet the C.P., in obedience to the dictates of
their Stalinist masters in Moscow, deliberately muddled the issues. In the 'Daily Worker'
of July 27th it states:

"Ever one can now see that the Fascists in Spain were able to organise a military
revolt not because the Government was too 'revolutionary', but precisely because it
believed (like, the Labour leaders) that it could 'shape and adapt the state to its
democratic purpose'.

"If the Spanish governrnent had driven the Fascist officers out of the armed forces, if
they had dismissed the Fascist officers in the police force, if they have created a
workers militia to defend the goverment and to enforce its decision, there would have been
no Fascist military revolt and thousands of lives would have been saved. (their emphasis)
But the people of Spain had learned their lesson even if the British Labour leaders are
too blind to see the meaning of the heroic struggle in Spain."

The blind leading the blind! Thus the Stalinists refused to pose the problems in class
terms. They preferred to regard the Bourgeois Republican measures of the Casares Quirogas,
of the Azanas and Companys as "mistakes" rather than motivated by class
interests and ideology. Thus they abandoned completely the Marxist method. Marx, Lenin and
Trotsky constantly emphasised the need to abandon abstract rhetoric and to mercilessly
expose the flaws in the arguments of the Bourgeois Democrats.

At a time when real power was in the hands of the working class the Socialist and
Communist leaders preferred to hand back power to the discredited representatives of the
Republican Bourgeoisie, while the Bourgeoisie itself had gone over overwhelmingly to the
side of Franco - in that lay the tragedy of the Spanish Revolution and the Spanish Civil
War.

If there was not social revolution in Spain, what is a social revolution supposed to
look like? The few lawyers, doctors and M.P.'s on the side of the Republic constituted a
tiny minority - the early victories over the Fascists were obtained by the workers
fighting for workers objectives.

The Communist Party in Spain was the fighting vanguard of the democratic
counter-revolution in Republican Spain. They drew the Anarchists and the Socialist leaders
behind them. The S.P. leadership not having a worked out perspective, were dragged behind
the C.P., the right wing wholeheartedly supporting and the left wing round Caballero
protestingly. But the Caballero wing were not prepared to stand firm. Had they done so
events in Spain would have taken an entirely different course and a socialist victory
would have been possible.

The P.O.U.M. was the most left organisation, parading itself as Marxist, and it
followed the Anarchists in Catalonia into the Government and prepared the way for their
destruction. They had jumped from a party of 1,000 - 1,500 to 30,000 in six weeks.
According to some reports this rose to 60,000 members. In proportion to population they
were thus stronger than the Bolsheviks were in the early days of the Russian revolution.
Moreover, the situation in Spain was far more revolutionary.

The workers militia remained organised as a workers' army. But the C.P. of Spain had
had its orders. On August 5th 1936, a little more than a fortnight after the attempted
counter-revolution and the answering movement, it issued the following declaration:

"The control committee of the Communist Party of Spain...the Spanish people, in
their struggle against the rebellion, are not striving for the establishment of the
dictatorship of the proletariat BUT KNOW ONLY ONE AIM: The defence of the Republican order
while respecting property.

"...This work ... has the co-operation ... of such conservative parties as the
Basque Nationalist Party, whose members are Catholics. This fact gives lie to the
declaration made by General Franco on the 'Marxist Danger' in Spain, and demonstrates the
duty imposed on all order loving people, without exception, to take sides with the
defenders of order, in Spain." Reported in the Manchester Guardian of August 6th, the
traditional Liberal paper in Britain.

What an inspiring and morale building appeal to the Spanish masses: they should take no
action against the property of the millionaire landowners and industrialists, who had
prompted and financed the movement of the Fascists and the insurrection of the army
Generals. This was even to the right of the position of the left Republicans. Jose Giral,
the Prime Minister in Madrid, manoeuvering under the pressure of the workers and fearful
that they would seize the banks, is reported without comment in the Daily Worker of August
8th:

"Explaining the measures for the control of industry and the banks Senor Giral
said 'It is necessary to undermine the economic basis of Fascism. Big banks and big
industry have been the pay-masters of Fascism, supplying funds with which the Fascist
Generals have been able to carry out a criminal attack on our people. That is why the most
vigilant control is now necessary."'

What an annihilating argument for the expropriation of the landowners, bankers and
capitalists! What did the 'control' amount to? It merely preserved the basis of capitalism
till better times came or the victory of Franco. It was not for this that the workers so
self sacrificingly and heroically shed their blood.

Take a few random despatches from the liberal paper the Guardian dealing with the
measures taken by the Spanish workers. On the 23rd July 1936 the Guardian reports from
Madrid:

"A committee of syndicalist organisations today took over the control of all
railway services in Madrid, dismissed the director, sub-directors, and officials of the
Northern Railway Company, and replaced them by proved Republicans."

Then a despatch from Barcelona on 27th August 1936:

" A government decree issued
this weekend makes effective a 40 hour week and a 15% increase of wages for industrial
workers earning less than 600 pesetas a month. P.S.U.C. (United Socialist and Communist
Party of Catalonia) and Anarchist proposals ... a 36 hour week. 10% increases in wages
below 500 pesetas a month. A 25% decrease in rents. Payment for strike days, indemnity for
the unemployed. Control of production by workers. A clean-up of various army sections. The
continuance of the popular militias. A summary court-martial of the military chiefs of the
present insurrection."

This was - in words - accepted by the Catalan President Companys as he manoeuvered
desperately and powerlessly for a time in the hope that the situation would improve.

In the same issue it is reported by foreigners fleeing from Barcelona:

"The travellers said that the strike was the workers counter-stroke to the
Fascists...Next day there were no servants in the hotel and little food."

In the Guardian of 29th July 1936 there is an interview with a French garage proprietor
in Barcelona who had fled to Toulouse:

"...No-one in Barcelona obeys the government any longer, or, rather what is left
of the government. Power has passed into the hands of workers' groups, who are often
guided by their political and social passions. The people obey the leaders of these
various groupings, many of which are Anarchist and Communist. It is rather curious to find
that the Mairie of Port Bou is the only one left that still functions normally under the
control of the civil guard. Everywhere else local committees have been set up in other
buildings and the Mairies have been abandoned. In the countryside the peasants continue to
work in the fields and they are paid for poultry, cattle and other provisions in bonds.
Most of these bonds are signed by the Communist Party or the United Trotskyist Workers'
Party (In reality the P.O.U.M. composed of ex-Trotskyists and Catalan Nationalist former
Communist Party members - E.G.) ... The banks are open and they receive signed cheques but
do not pay them..."

And then again on August 3rd and 4th from Barcelona:

"The public services are running efficiently under the direction of syndicalists,
who are now controlling all transport including the Catalan railways and certain important
industries."

And again on the 4th August 1936:

"All public services such as water, gas, electricity, tramways and railways, are
now administered by the workers. The former managers and technical experts are, however,
retained and consulted where necessary. But whereas the salaries of the workers have been
raised by 30%, those of the technical services are strictly limited to 1,500 pesetas a
month."

Sometimes the essence of an event can be discerned in-trifling things, that are
symptomatic of deeper processes. Thus the Daily Worker of August 7th 1936 reports about
the same time as the Spanish central committee of the Communist Party is babbling about
order and the defence of democracy and property.

"Towns held by Spanish government troops are having the street names changed.
Names which have any connection with Capitalism are being taken down. Proletariat
'liberty' and Karl Marx streets replace them."

This report from the Stalinist press itself shows the real wishes and aspirations of
the armed working class at the time. They were trying to impose a revolutionary policy on
the leadership which was too blind or cowardly - or in the case of the C.P. leadership and
that of the right-wing socialists too sceptical, cynical and treacherous to understand the
realities of the situation. In the same issue of the Daily Worker their correspondent from
Madrid reports:

"... The aircraft factory at Cuatro Vientos is working directly under control of a
workers committee, composed of representatives of workers of all branches...

"...Similarly the majority of factories, railways, tramways and powerplants are
working under the control of factory committees...

... All banking operations too are under the strict control of committees composed of
representatives of the clerks union, thus ensuring the impossibility of wealthy Fascists
putting across any operations harmful to the Republican cause."

These few quotations and the material in the former pages can give only a pale
reflection of the magnificence of the revolution - of the workers revolution - let us call
it by its right name - the socialist revolution which was unfolding in Spain. The workers
were trying to break capitalism, in small things and on the question of power. The
leadership of their organisations, and through them the organisations themselves, blocked
their path. There was no party, or faction in the parties, prepared to make a stand, as
did the Bolsheviks in Russia, or Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht in Germany.

The Bolsheviks, from a small minority, became the majority of the Russian Revolution
and led the workers to victory. In Spain in an exceptionally favourable situation, more
favourable than in Russia before the October 1917 Revolution, there was no party or
leadership capable of making a correct estimate of the situation, drawing the necessary
conclusions, and leading the workers firmly to take power. All that was necessary in the
situation was to explain to the workers the real relationship of forces, the necessary and
vital steps and to show them how their leaders and organisations stood in the way.

Power was in the hands of the workers, but it was not centralised or organised.
Committees, Juntas or Soviets, the name does not matter, should have been organised in
every factory and district, elected by the workers, housewives and all sections of the
working population, including the peasants and of course the workers militias. These in
turn should have been linked by delegates to form area, regional and an all National
Committee. This could have formed the framework of a new Regime pushing aside the
contemptible and powerless Government and establishing the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat.

Revolutionaries isolated

The mood and actions of the working class would have gained an overwhelming response.
Outside Spain, day by day, Leon Trotsky and the Trotskyists, made the correct analysis but
at that time in Spain they had neither the authority nor the organisation to influence
events. The overwhelming majority of the active militants, the S.P., the C.P., the
P.O.U.M., and the anarchist militants unfortunately had no access to the material issued
by the Trotskyists, and thus could not react to it. That was the tragedy of the Spanish
revolution, which doomed it to defeat and prepared the way for the victory of Franco in
the Civil War.

The events of the civil war can only be given in a sketchy form and even a synopsis
here. If necessary we will return to this theme with the necessary documentation. However,
Felix Morrow has written a Marxist classic: "Revolution and Counter Revolution in
Spain" which is an invaluable record of the facts. We hope that it will become
available in Spanish for the benefit of the Y.S. and Socialist Party comrades.

Jose Giral, as Prime Minister of a cabinet composed exclusively of Left Republicans,
became more and more incompatible with the real relationship of forces. Consequently Giral
resigned on September 14th and handed over to Caballero, who formed a government
consisting of Socialists - left and right - Communists, Left Republicans and even right
Republicans. Thus instead of dismantling the bourgeois state, Caballero and the Left
Socialists collaborated with the Stalinists in shoring it up with the 'correct'
parliamentary forms.

They represented neither the decisive sections of the bourgeoisie nor even a sizeable
section of the proletariat. They hung in limbo, without even the normal basis of a
bourgeois state - control. of the armed forces. The workers militias were under the
control of the workers organisations and looked to them for guidance and leadership.

Instead of encouraging the workers in their endeavours to take control, Caballero
promised a better world...After the war! In the Cortes he announced: "...It is
important to state at once that the structure of the country will be changed after our
victory and that the first article of the constitution according to which Spain is a
republic of the toiling masses can at last be realised..." (Page 1260, International
Press Correspondence, 19th September 1936).

But the whole essence of a civil war is that the masses cannot wait! A change in the
social structure has to be carried out immediately if it is to have an effect on the
workers, and especially the peasants. They have been deceived so many times, that they
become sceptical and indifferent to promises. Statements of social changes especially when
couched in such vague, indefinite phrases can have no appeal, especially to peasants.

They want deeds not words in a situation where words are punctuated by bullets. Lenin
explained long ago that "an ounce of experience is worth ten of theory".
Especially where promises are concerned. If the masses are to make great sacrifices of
blood and suffering it must be for a worthwhile aim - and not that of the discredited
bourgeois "republic" which had prepared the way for the Fascist
counter-revolution.

Gilding the "republic" as was done by Caballero can carry no conviction to
the peasants. They think in terms of the land. That is the reality to them. When
propaganda by loudspeakers to the rebel army was conducted in the trenches, the reply of
the conscripted peasants in Franco's army to appeals to come over to the republic was
"what has the republic ever done for us?" To them it was a struggle between
generals. They didn't want to fight but they could see no fundamental difference between
the two sides. Why risk reprisals to their families and risk their own lives by coming
over? Consequently they fought for their own enslavement a well as that of the workers and
peasants of all Spain.

Just to make sure that there were to be no real social changes the general secretary of
the "Communist" party Jose Diaz wrote in the same issue... "In order to
alarm international opinion (whose opinion?, that of the capitalists, E.G.) its enemies
have asserted that it is a socialist-communist government; in reality it is nothing more
nor less than the continuation of the republican and democratic ministries." This is
for once correct, and we have seen the record of these ministries! "Where the
peasants en masse have taken up the armed struggle against the rebels and are now
organising a guerrilla struggle at the rear of the reactionary bandits..."

Hunting for examples of that mythical creature under modern conditions the
"revolutionary bourgeoisie" the communist party writer continues... "The
considerable success of the party of Martinez Barrios at the elections (of February 1936)
cannot be explained otherwise than by the anti-fascist sentiments of part of the
bourgeoisie ... (after the July fascist insurrection)" Jose Giral, Francisco Barnes,
Casares Quiroga (his role is sufficiently dealt with in his threats to give instructions
to shoot anyone arming the workers), Enrico Kames and Manuel Blasque Garon -
Industrialists and landowners who form part of the ministry of Jose Giral..." In fact
they represented not their class but themselves as individuals - within the republican
camp desperately manouvering against the socialist revolution.

Apart from the fact that in the early days and hours of the fascist uprising, before
they had lost control of events, the Liberal government tried to compromise with the
Franco gangsters. The article, continues with grisly and unconscious humour: "...Had
the development of events been different it is possible that some of these people would
have sought for a compromise with reaction..." The article continues:

"...There can be no doubt that the overwhelming majority of
the bourgeoisie sympathise with the insurgents, and support them, but there are groups of
the bourgeoisie, especially among the national minorities, therefore these groups must not
be left out of account in the antifascist camp ... A wide social basis at a moment of such
sharp struggle is one of the factors guaranteeing the success of the revolution...the
Spanish antifascist people's front, as a pacific form of the unification of various
classes in face of the fascist danger ... At the same time the peculiarity of the Spanish
people's front ... the relatively slow pace at which the masses of the peasantry are being
drawn into the armed struggle..."

To "add" fire to petrol hardly increases ones forces. To have the support of
the remnant of the bourgeoisie was, as events were to demonstrate to weaken and undermine,
not strengthen the struggle against Franco. Action expropriating the landowners and
capitalists would have strengthened the workers camp a million times more. But in reality
the Stalinists, at the instructions of Moscow, were desperately trying to restore the
bourgeois republican regime. In Catalonia, and Spain, as the party that stood for
"law" "order" "the defence of private property" they became
the party of the middle class in the towns and the rich peasants in the countryside. At
that time two thirds of the membership were composed of shopkeepers, foremen, small
businessmen, rich peasants, top levels of the technicians, etc. Only one third was
composed of workers - mostly the most backward section of the working class.

Workers' or capitalist army?

The Stalinists as defenders of the "revolutionary bourgeoisie" were trying to
restore the situation in republican Spain as it existed before the revolution. This
required counter revolution - bloody and vile - within the republican camp.

As early as October 1936 they prevailed on Caballero to begin the process of
transforming the militia into a "regular army". Now it is clear that in a civil
war centralised command is necessary. But the whole point of an army in modern society is
in whose interests it is organised, what class basis it possesses, what is its motivation,
which class does the general sfaff and the officers come from, whose interests do they
represent, what class basis does the army fulfil? No mythical appeals to anti-fascist
unity can avoid the class issues while class society remains.

Trotsky and the Bolsheviks built an army also from scratch. But it was the army of the
workers in power. They used tens of thousands of the officers of the Tsarist army, but
they were under the strict control of workers commissars loyal to the workers state and to
the ideals of the socialist revolution.

If a centralised army is to be built it can only be the tool of a workers or capitalist
state - it cannot be a non-class army - a mythical class neutrality is impossible.
Consequently, afraid or incapable of consummating the socialist revolution, Caballero and
the other leaders assisted in carrying through the organisation of a capitalist army. This
again was to have disastrous consequences for the civil war.

As already shown the overwhelming majority of the officers and generals went over to
the fascists, far more apparently than even in Russia. In a purely military struggle they
would clearly have the advantage. But war, and even to a magnified extent civil war is the
continuation of politics by forcible means. In war, says Napoleon, the moral is to the
physical as 4 is to 1.

By creating an army not on the model of the Red Army of 1918-20 but of a capitalist
army, the whole basis of the workers struggle was undermined. Systematically in Barcelona
and Madrid the Stalinists toiled to recreate the bourgeois state. The first great
successes had all been achieved by the methods of social revolution. The militias in the
first rush conquered Aragon. The land was seized in Catalonia and Aragon. Advancing
further than the Russian revolution in its early days in response to generations of
anarchist propaganda the land was collectivised by the peasants themselves. The militia
stood at the gates of Huesca, Teruel and Saragossa.

But the central government starved this front of arms and supplies for fear of the
social revolutionary consequences that victory on this front would mean. Caballero allowed
himself to be blackmailed by the C.P. under threat that the Russians would cease to supply
arms, the bulk of which were being sent to the Madrid front, where the C.P. played an
important role.

It was the growing conflict between the aspirations of the workers and the gradual
return to bourgeois "normality" which precipitated the crisis which came to be
known as the "May days of 1937".

Every revolution has seen similar movements of the workers when they felt the
revolution being betrayed. The June days of France in Paris in 1848, the July days in
Russia of 1917 and the January days in Germany in 1919. The masses feel power slipping out
of their hands. They rise convulsively in protest against the "sell out" to the
bourgeoisie in an elemental movement.

Power in workers' hands

The immediate cause of the uprising of the working class in Barcelona and Catalonia was
the attempt of the Stalinists to seize control of the telephone exchange for the Catalan
government. This had been under the control of the workers in the C.N.T. since the first
days of the revolution, and represented an element of workers control.

The Stalinists in the Generalitat, the autonomous Catalonian government, sent some
tanks and troops to seize control of the exchange. The workers replied with a general
strike. Barricades appeared in Barcelona and other Catalonian towns. The government was
powerless. An attempt to send assault guards from Valencia and to send the international
brigade to put down the movement of the workers collapsed because of the refusal of the
troops to be moved to take action against the workers.

Once again, power was in the hands of the workers! There where no troops in Barcelona
or elsewhere on which the government could rely to put down the movement.

Here the C.N.T. and the P.O.U.M. came to the rescue of the revived Bourgeois state.
Arguing that it was impossible to start a Civil War within a Civil War these
"Marxists" appealed to the workers to return to work. Some way of ending the
conflict would be found by agreement between the workers and the Government. For four days
the workers controlled the streets. HAD THE P.O.U.M. ISSUED THE CALL TO TAKE POWER THERE
WAS NO FORCE TO STOP THEM! The anarchists and the P.O.U.M., prevailed on the workers to
"Go back to work." The crisis was over! The opportunity to transform the
situation was lost.

Had the P.O.U.M. taken power they could have offered a united front against Franco to
the Government in Madrid. The Government had no troops on which it could rely. Very
rapidly the masses in Madrid, Valencia and at the fronts would have rallied to the banner
of socialism in Barcelona. The power of the Madrid Government would have crumbled and
disappeared.

The P.O.U.M. failed to act. They had entered the Catalonian Bourgeois Government with
the Anarchists and hoped for miracles. In words they were against class collaboration, in
deeds they col*laborated with the shadow of the capitalist class.

Within six weeks they received the reward for their cowardice and lack of perspective.
In a revolution the masses learn fast, but these "leaders" had learned nothing.
The Stalinists seized the opportunity provided by the fact that the masses had been
reduced to passivity and despair. Using the pretext that the P.O.U.M. were involved in a
plot with Franco they were declared illegal. Nin and other leaders were murdered by G.P.U.
agents in Spain. The Party disappeared from the scene.

Caballero had refused to agree to the suppression of the P.O.U.M. Consequently he had
to be removed. The C.P. hatched a plot with Prieto and the right wing socialists and with
the bourgeois Republicans in the cabinet. Caballero was replaced by Negrin, who was more
pliant in the hands of the Stalinists. Passionaria hailed this as the "Government of
Victory!" There were some military victories. Very few! But by transforming the
struggle into a purely military one the seeds for defeat had been sown. The bourgeois
officers who had the military training were not reliable.

After the dissolution of the militias, Malaga and the Basque country were betrayed by a
section of the staff into the hands of the Fascists.

But in any event, as a purely military struggle the war could not be won The general
excuses, if they deal with the subject at all, to explain the defeat by the reformists and
Stalinists, is foreign intervention and the Moors! Hitler and Mussolini supplied troops,
100,000 Italians and 20.000 to 60,000 Germans, tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of
Moors were in Franco's Army.

But in the Russian Revolution, too, there was intervention from foreign troops.
Twenty-one armies, of all the Great Powers, intervened. Russia was blockaded. In the early
stages of the Civil War only one province with Petrograd remained in the hands of the
Bolsheviks. The rest of Russia was in the hands of the White Guard and the armies of
intervention.

The Bolsheviks won not because of superior military arms, or skills but because they
waged the civil war as a social struggle. Land to the peasants, freedom for the oppressed
nationalities, factories to the workers and Proletarian Internationalism was the method of
the Bolsheviks. Consequently, every Russian Army sent against the Bolsheviks and Russian
Workers and Peasantry, and their power, mutinied and had to be withdrawn. Behind the
capitalist and Imperialist lines the peasants and workers sabotaged the struggle. They
supplied the Red Army with invaluable information about their enemies. They organised
Guerrilla war. The White Guard Armies, feeling the hostility of the people, became
demoralised. Tens of thousands conscripted, deserted to the Reds. The Russian workers were
victorious in the Civil War.

In China Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese C.P., waging a semi-revolutionary war, gained
victory. The Civil War started with an overwhelming majority of Chiang Kai-Shek forces,
militarily and numerically. They were supplied with the most modern equipment in tanks,
planes and guns, by American Imperialism. The greater part of China was in their hands.
But giving the land to the peasants, reserving a piece of land to the soldiers of Chiang's
Armies, in the villages from where they came, won over the troops. By hundreds of
thousands; and by whole divisions, they deserted to the Red Army. Waging a social war - a
semi-revolutionary war - resulted in military victories too, because of the high morale of
the troops, from the peasant officers to the smallest corporal and private, that is the
way - though lacking sophisticated material - which was brought over by the soldiers
deserting to their side - though the military odds seemed to be overwhelmingly against
them in territory, numbers and material, they were victorious.

When the Spanish Civil War is examined the opposite process is to be seen. The
magnificent initiative of the workers, gains dazzling victories of an unarmed working
class in two-thirds of Spain. The fleet comes over to the side of the workers. Part of the
Air Force and Artillery.

But the revolution is not consummated. Inch by inch the workers are blasted back. The
Democratic counter&emdash;revolution in the rear undermined the struggle at the front.
The land in Catalonia and Aragon is repossessed by the landlords. The factories are
gradually re-gained by the capitalists. The Bourgeois state and Bourgeois army are
restored. Power is in the hands of "Democratic Capitalism."

What are the consequences? The Moors were Franco's crack troops. Why did they fight for
enslavement for themselves and their Spanish brothers, the workers and peasants? Abd El
Krim, who led the struggle for Moorish independence from Spain and France, was in exile in
an island in the Mediteranean. He offered the Republican Government to come to Spain and
appeal to the Moors to come over to the side of the Republic. All he asked in return was
autonomy for Morrocco. But to give autonomy to Morrocco would offend the
"democracies" of Britain and France by undermining their Empires in Africa.
Moreover, was not the Popular Front Government pledged to maintain all the Spanish Land?
Not waging the war by revolutionary means the offer was rejected. Throughout the conflict
the Moors remained the fiercest and best troops. The crowning irony of this particular
fact is that later, fearful of the collapse of his regime were he to wage a Colonial War,
Franco conceded - not autonomy - but independence" Thus the Fascists gave at the
first risk what the miserable Popular Front Government was not prepared to concede when it
was fighting for its life!

It is true that Mussolini and Hitler supplied enormous quantities of material and also
troops to Franco. But these troops were Italian peasants and workers, German peasants and
workers. They could be reached - they could only be reached by an International Socialist
appeal as with the Bolsheviks in Russia. But in spite of all, foreign troops and Moors
were auxilliaries. The main body of Franco's troops were Spaniards, mainly peasants
conscripted into Franco's army. They could only be won over by showing the fundamental
social differences between the armies. Land to the peasants, factories to the workers,
freedom for the oppressed nationalities in Spain and in Africa that was the only programme
for victory. The programme of transforming the power back to the landlords and capitalists
could have no effect on the troops in Franco's army. Militarily superior in officers,
tanks, on this level all the advantages were on the side of Franco. Waging the struggle as
a "military war" - not a social war waged by arms - guaranteed defeat.
"Popular Front" France and "Democratic" Britain starved
"Republican" Spain of arms with the hypocritical farce of
"non-intervention." Stalinist Russia participated in this farce. Only after
precious months had been lost did they supply arms, and then only on condition of halting
the social revolution.

The policies of the workers parties in the revolution and civil war guaranteed defeat.
But let us assume for a moment that by some fantastic miracle military if not social
victory could have been obtained. What then? Power had been handed back to the capitalists
and landlords. The remnants of the old officer caste and middle class had taken over the
officers jobs in the reconstructed bourgeois army. The country was ruined and had been
laid waste in the terrible civil war.

The repression of the initiative of the workers and their nascent control of the
factories had demoralised and thwarted the ideals of the working class. The generals,
placed in full command of the renewed army, decided everything. Towards the end of the
struggle it was apparent that victory was far away.

The uncontrolled army command, of the refurbished regular army, seized power to try and
propose a compromise with Franco (!), General Casado and General Miaja. Miaja with a
Communist Party membership card in his pocket - established a military dictatorship! As a
reward for being the fighting vanguard of democratic counter-revolution, within the
revolution, the "Communist" Party was made illegal and forced underground. There
were now two dictatorships in Spain - on both sides of the trenches!

Even had "Republican" Spain won the civil war there viould have been a
military police state in Spain! This was the final condemnation of the policies of all the
workers organisations.

Spain, after more than three decades of dictatorship is moving once again towards
revolution. The C.P. leaders, having learned nothing, play the same perfidious role.

It is the task of the Spanish Young Socialists to carry the lessons of the civil war to
the working class, and of course to the rank and file fighters of the Communist Party.
Internationally and nationally the perspective is favourable. Anarchism is discredited in
its former "Last Latin hide-out" and is very weak. The Socialist Party and the
Communist Party are the two real forces within the working class. The CP rank and file
will respond to a bold lead from the S.P. and the Y.S. if it is based on the ideas of
Marxism.

Victory of the Socialist revolution in Spain can transform the international situation.
The only road for the Spanish Workers to ensure the success of the revolution is to learn
the lessons of the Spanish revolution of 1931-1937 and of the civil war. Without this
understanding they would be doomed to make similar mistakes and suffer the fate of their
fathers and grandfathers.